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THE  JOURNEY 

ODES  AND  SONNETS 


GERALD  GOULD 


AT   LOS  ANGELES 


THE  JOURNEY 


PUBLISHED  ON  THE  KINGSLEY  TRUST 
ASSOCIATION  PUBLICATION  FUND 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

LYRICS 
AN  ESSAY  ON  THE  NATURE  OF  LYRIC 

POEMS 
MY  LADY'S  BOOK 

MONOGAMY 

THE  HELPING  HAND 

THE  HAPPY  TREE 

LADY  ADELA 
THE  COMING  REVOLUTION  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 


THE  JOURNEY 

ODES  AND  SONNETS 
BY  GERALD  GOULD 


NEW  HAVEN 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
MDCCCCXXI 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,  BY 
W.  COLLINS  SONS  &  CO.,  LTD. 


:  .'  v 


£734 


ch 
c* 
I 

|  AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

MOST  of  these  poems  have  appeared  in  peri- 
odicals. I  have  to  thank,  for  permission  to 
reprint,  the  Editors  of  the  Observer,  the 
i_i 

Athenceum,  the  Nation,  the  English  Review,  the  New 

World,  the  Venturer,  To-Day,  the  Daily  Mirror,  the 

Westminster  Gazette,  Time  and  Tide,  the  Woman  s 

n     Leader,  the  Oxford  Magazine,  the  Cambridge  Maga- 

O) 

£***,  and  Coterie;  also  the  Editor  of  "A  Miscellany 

^^ 

-.      of  Poetry,  1919." 

h  G.  G. 


234613 


ODES 


TO  BARBARA 


1 

YOU  are  so  young, 
Yet  older  than  the  eldest  things  that  be 
— Older  than  cliffs  affronted  by  the  sea, 
That  crumble  into  legend,  shelf  by  shelf; 
Older  than  bright  Orion,  lost  for  lust, 
Dust-born  and  dimming  back  again  to  dust; 
Older  than  memory's  first  incarnate  hour; 
Older  than  age  itself; 
And  sprung 

In  life's  immortal  April  like  a  flower. 
Now,  as  you  turn 

Where  the  high  road's  cut  off  against  the  light, 
Behind  you  in  a  golden  circle  burn 
All  the  round  days  circumferenced  by  night; 
And  the  green  leaves  that  frame  the  road  and  you 
I  n  contrast  with  that  gold  show  darkly  blue, 
Save  at  the  fringes  where  the  sun  spills  through 
And  shakes  them  to  a  whirl  and  mist  of  fire : 
Your  hair,  your  bright  hair,  bright  as  young  desire, 
Wears  the  same  halo :  all  your  youth  is  strung 
To  urgent  quiet  in  the  poise  you  hold : 
You  are  solitary  there,  you  are  fixed,  you  are  free, 
With  rising  sap  wrought  upwards  like  a  tree 
— A  golden  challenge,  dressed  and  crowned  with 
gold. 

13 


O  insolently  innocent, 

Flower-like  for  beauty,  tree-like  for  intent ! 

O  wantonly,  provocatively  pure ! 

Ask  your  own  heart,  are  you  indeed  so  sure  ? 

Childhood,  we  know,  is  stable  in  its  changes, 

And  strong  because  so  frail  to  the  falling  hour : 

The  day  goes  black,  yet  soon  with  all  its  power 

Dies,  and  the  new  day  cheers,  and  the  new  friend 

estranges : 

But  you,  you  growing,  you  becoming  wise, 
Have  lost  your  shining  mutabilities: 
Too  trustful  now,  you  hold  your  God  in  trust : 
It  hurts  the  heart  to  see  you  unafraid, 
Who  to  the  bottomless  future  have  betrayed 
The  perilous  perfection  of  your  dust. 
What  must  be,  must : 

The  breathless  beauty  passes,  the  light  thins ; 
Not  the  light  only,  but  the  dark,  begins 
To  overflow  its  frontiers,  mingle  and  fade 
Into  a  dull  ubiquity  of  shade. 
And  here  and  there  a  usual  music  wins 
Upon  the  silence,  and  the  breaking  and  stirring 
Of  tiny  momentary  processes 
Give  back  to  the  world  its  sense  of  seeking  and 

erring — 
And  hark !  a  wind  in  the  trees. 

14 


Dear,  be  it  so ! 

You  take  my  heaven  in  your  two  hands,  and  go, 

And  I  can  never  follow :  and  yet  I  know 

What  thing  you  challenged  here,  and  what  you  knew. 

Why  should  all  beauty  not  belong  to  you  ? 

To  whom,  if  not  the  singer,  should  belong 

The  rare  and  dangerous  excellence  of  song? — 

Clouds  and  a  coming  difference  hold  the  air. 

You  are  so  young;  your  youth's  the  surest  thing; 

That  alters  not  with  the  hour's  altering ; 

That  was,  before  you  were. 

In  the  beginning  were  you  less  than  fair? — 

And  what  more  can  you  win  to? — Must  you  care? 

Clouds  and  the  change — have  you  not  known  of 

these  ? — 
Reckoned  their  worth,  and  cared  not?  All  things 

blend 

Now  with  the  past,  which  is  the  future  too ; 
Voices  there  are  and  sudden  silences 
And  memories  of  youth — and  you — 
And  endless  thoughts,  and  no  thought  in  the  end 
But  the  wind  in  the  trees. 


II 

I  cannot  thank  you,  Lord — because 

I  cannot  understand 

Why  you  at  last,  at  last,  have  moved  your  hand, 

Which  was  put  forth  between  the  sun  and  me 

— Whose  shadow  was 

A  darkness  on  the  earth  and  on  the  sea, 

A  darkness  on  all  things  that  I  have  known. 

I  never  understood  why  you  shut  out 

The  natural  airs,  and  let  me  walk  alone 

Through  lanes  of  trouble  in  the  valley  of  doubt, 

Hear  at  mere  noon  the  nightjar's  ragged  shout, 

And  find  June's  flowers  unblown  or  overblown. 

I  never  understood  why  this  should  be, 

And  now  I  know  not  why  it  should  have  ended. 

When  I  have  tried  to  touch 

The  bark  of  trees,  the  flesh  of  friends — unfriended 

My  hand  came  back,  its  impotence  was  such, 

And  the  numb  fingers  drooped,  the  numb  heart 

sagged. 

But  now — now — I  am  free 
Suddenly :  I  can  touch  this  friend,  this  tree, 
And  the  lark  sings  at  noon,  and  June's  beflagged, 
And  bravely  open  shine  the  gates  of  Heaven; 
The  width  of  sky  and  cloud  and  wind  is  mine, 
The  sun's  strong  light  runs  through  the  soul  like 

wine, 
16 


And  simple  freedom  is  the  body's  leaven. 

You  have  dressed  in  fire,  beatified  with  wings, 

The  natural,  sane,  and  ordinary  things: 

By  peace, 

By  sheer  release, 

By  nothing  but  allowing  pain  to  cease, 

By  the  cessation  of  a  single  curse, 

You  have  dowered  me  with  the  solid  universe. 

I  do  not  understand 

Why  prison  first,  and  freedom  next,  was  planned : 

I  do  not  understand 

Why  still  there  are  those  who  walk  in  the  dark  land, 

Hear  all  their  music  tortured,  as  if  it  came 

Transverse  through  dusty  tapestries  of  shame; 

See  all  their  constellations  set  awry 

'Twixt  false  horizons  of  derisive  sky; 

And,  when  they  touch  their  fellows,  touch  them  not, 

But  grope,  and  miss,  and  slip,  and  wither,  and  rot, 

Turning  their  senses  to  the  hopes  that  die, 

Making  of  loveliness  a  loveless  game. 

Those  are  the  slaves ;  my  lot  was  long  the  same ; 

And  those  are  still  the  slaves,  and  free  am  I . 

You,  who  put  forth  the  darkness,  lift  for  me  your 

hand. 
Lord,  Lord,  I  cannot  thank :  I  cannot  understand. 


Ill 

Behold  this  huddled  thing,  this  obscene  heap, 

Knitting  his  muscles  as  he  craves 

For  stammering  nerves  a  little  trickle  of  sleep ! 

— He  has  no  hope  of  the  good  streams  that  sweep 

Calm  from  the  height  descending  to  the  deep : 

As  broad  they  are,  as  ample,  as  the  snows 

That  cover  up  earth's  blasphemy  of  graves; 

But  these  move  in  their  brightness — a  white  flood, 

A  long  procession  of  abundant  waves, 

To  consecrate,  to  close 

Peace  on  the  brain  and  healing  on  the  blood. 

— All  health,  all  peace,  all  calmness,  this  forgoes, 

And  asks  only,  with  endless  twitch  and  shake, 

For  the  sharp  momentary  drop  to  slake 

One  pang  of  fever :  if  at  all  sleep  comes, 

Through  it,  in  all  his  veins,  the  tiny  drums 

Beat,  and  then  prick,  then  gather  to  a  shout, 

And  in  a  blare  of  colours  bright  with  pain 

Shatter  the  half-sweet  sickness  of  his  doubt, 

And  hale  him  out 

From  respite  worse  than  torture :  and  again 

The  four  walls  stand 

— The  same  four  walls. — The  almond  blossom  blows 

Outside,  beyond :  the  roads  go  up  and  down : 

The  wind  has  changed  the  colour  of  the  land, 

18 


And  there  are  lights  and  voices  in  the  town. 

— The  same  four  walls  shut  in  this  broken  thing, 

Spring  after  almond-bringing  spring, 

And  in  the  prison  it  is  always  cold. 

The  fever  fire  burns  chilly  in  the  old, 

And  he,  if  ever  young,  was  young  so  long  ago, 

When  the  door  clang'd  and  the  four  walls  closed  in. 

Well,  we  believe  in  God.  God  punishes  sin, 

And  this  man  was  a  sinner,  we  suppose. 

The  hand  that  shut  him  here  behind  the  bars, 

That  made  this  huddled  thing,  this  heap  obscene, 

Has  set  the  stars  asunder  from  the  stars, 

With  only  space  and  silence  blown  between. 


IV 

You  know  the  gray  that  paints  the  undergrowth 
Of  English  woods  in  summer,  when  the  light 
Still  holds  the  sky,  and  the  first  star  is  loth, 
And,  between  trees,  over  the  knots  and  strings 
Of  weed  and  creeper,  into  eddy  and  bight, 
Air  flows  like  water,  changing  the  shapes  of  things ; 
And  all  is  lichen-coloured,  pure  and  chill : 
The  farewell  voices  from  the  distant  hill 
Sound  hollow  and  forlorn :  yet  there  is  peace : 
A  sense  of  stay,  fulfilment  and  release, 
As  if  the  calm  hour  with  weak  hands  could  pull 
From  its  silver  limbs  time's  dragging  cords  of  steel, 
And  stand  without  a  breath,  content  to  feel 
How  wide  the  world  is,  and  how  beautiful. 
Then — sudden  and  immedicable  change! 
On  grotesque  foliage  and  elfin  bole 
Dark  fall  the  shadows  suddenly,  and  strange : 
The  body  of  that  hour  has  lost  its  soul. 
Ev'n  thus 

It  falls,  dear  heart,  with  us: 
The  structure  of  the  world  is  changed  about 
The  manikins  that  plot  eternity : 
They  see  the  beauty  of  the  world  go  out 
And  darkness  come,  and  that  is  all  they  see. 
We  in  an  evening  solitude  were  free 
20 


Together,  and  breathed  not,  hushed  and  havened 

there 

— Two  ships  becalmed  in  silver  seas  of  air. 
Through  the  uncoloured  leaves  one  star  showed 

bright; 

Then  more  stars  came,  and  with  them  came  the  night, 
And  with  the  night  came  fear. 
— The  story  has  no  other  ending,  dear ! 
How  could  I  comfort,  who  was  stricken  too  ? 
You  put  out  little  hands  to  thwart  the  dark, 
And  the  dark  covered  you. 
'Hark!'  said  your  lost  voice  in  the  strangeness, 

'Hark! 

Some  one  has  called — the  noise  of  it  went  by 
Like  a  live  thing  just  now!' — What  answered  I, 
Or  what  could  answer,  knowing  the  thing  you  heard 
Was  your  own  childhood's  farewell  word  ? 
I  could  not  comfort  then,  I  cannot  comfort  now : 
The  strong  night  breaks  the  mortal  vow, 
And  the  world  changes,  and  a  child  is  dead. 
But,  dear,  when  all  the  woe's  fulfilled, 
And  conquering  night  established  near  and  far, 
Then  comes  the  turning  of  the  fluctuant  war : 
The  first  cold  beams  of  dawn  begin  to  gild 
Foliage  and  bole,  creeper  and  weed ;  and  red 
Flushes  the  hollow  of  the  sky :  one  star 

21 


Pale  on  the  rim  of  climbing  day  is  left, 

And  then  no  star  at  all : 

With  gold,  with  gold,  the  heart  of  the  wood  is  cleft ; 

Invincible  the  shafts  of  morning  fall; 

The  morning  makes  the  world  and  finds  it  good ; 

The  morning  comes  like  trumpets  in  the  wood. 


22 


V 

The  bird's  song  is  a  hollow  round, 
And  silence  is  the  core  of  sound ; 
And  we,  who  have  in  either  hand  to  weigh 
The  alternate  infinites  of  night  and  day ; 
Who,  in  the  heart's  impregnable  alcove, 
Hug  the  huge  jewel  of  our  Maker's  love; 
Whose  thoughts  are  constellations,  and  our  speech 
A  dancing  marvel  in  the  mouth  of  each 
— What  to  the  Giver  have  we  rendered — we 
The  brave,  the  immortal — lovers,  poets,  kings, 
Climbers  of  mountains,  sailors  of  the  sea, 
Masters  of  many  things? 

Once  to  their  God  men  gave  the  things  he  gave  them, 
Bargaining  a  bullock's  fat  and  basted  thigh 
Against  the  blinding  mercy  that  should  save  them 
From  all  the  creeping  terrors  of  the  earth, 
And  all  the  falling  terrors  of  the  sky ! 
But  we,  of  later  more  considerate  birth, 
Have  driven  a  stranger  bargain :  God  shall  save, 
We  say,  none  but  the  prisoner  and  the  slave : 
Lo,  for  salvation  he  shall  set  apart 
Only  the  humble  and  the  contrite  heart ! 
Nothing  he  shall  receive 

Save  what's  so  broken  that  earth  has  done  with  it : 
Pride,  joy,  and  beauty — these  are  for  the  Pit: 

23 


The  rest  to  Heav'n  we  leave. 

Broken  and  contrite — shattered,  driven,  maimed, 

What  am  I  worth  to  God  ?  The  choice  is  his. 

He  has  made  his  weapon  of  the  hard  thing  that  is, 

And  hunted  man  into  humility. 

Where  the  head's  bent  above  the  bended  knee, 

The  unnameable  is  named, 

The  filthy  are  made  clean,  the  guilty  go  unblamed : 

Those  others  of  the  world  are  damned — but  free. 

— Nay,  are  there  any  others?  Who  has  claimed 

One  step  in  his  own  strength  ?  God  wills  it  so — 

Yet,  heart  of  daring,  O 

To  stand  up  in  the  dawn  and  draw  the  light 

With  strong  hands  forward  in  the  teeth  of  night ; 

To  scatter  the  rebellious  stars ;  to  feast 

Body  and  spirit  on  the  burning  East; 

And  strong,  and  confident,  and  clean,  and  wise, 

Give  back  to  God  his  own  infinities ! — 

Not,  not  repentance,  not  contrition,  not 

The  choice  of  those  who,  having  thrown  the  lot 

And  lost  the  earth  and  the  desire  thereof 

And  all  the  sweet  superlatives  of  love, 

Turn  to  salvation  as  a  second  best : 

But  bravery,  but  youth,  but  zest, 

What  man  were  proud  to  give,  and  God  to  take. 

— Well,  God  has  chosen.  It's  for  him  to  say. 

24 


He  has  his  way, 
And  our  hearts  break. 
Two  days  ago  a  sacred  something  died : 
I  had  not  thought  that  it  could  perish  so : 
Two  days  ago  I  learnt  all  God  will  let  me  know. 
— Two  days  ago  ?  Two  thousand  years  ago, 
At  that  ninth  hour  when  the  great  veil  was  rent, 
And  earth  and  sky  were  one  dark  continent 
For  one  man  crucified! 


VI 

I  went  away  from  you, 
Not  as  they  go  whose  light  aerial  fires 
Provoke  their  blood  to  mutable  desires, 
But  slowly,  but  with  sorrow  smitten  through. 
I  went  away  from  you  who  are 
My  peace,  my  courage,  and  my  star ; 
My  spirit,  moving  in  me  as  I  move; 
My  sum  of  hope ;  my  compass  of  surprise ; 
My  seagull,  white  and  wanton  in  black  skies; 
My  storm  and  calm  of  love. 
I  went :  the  silence  made  by  your  song's  ceasing 
Closed  in,  a  prison  ignorant  of  releasing : 
Hard  silence,  solider  than  sound, 
Enfolded  me  around : 

And,  seeking  there  distraction,  there  I  found 
Silence,  a  curse  increasing. 
You  know  not,  nor  have  had  the  means  to  know, 
How  the  bad  noises  that  the  ear  ignores 
Fill  the  gaunt  halls  where  the  sick  heart  explores : 
Unreal  sounds,  unhappy;  pricking  airs, 
In  complex  nothingness  woven  to  and  fro 
To  make  a  senseless  pattern  unawares. 
Hell's  a  negation  fashioned  so : 
A  false  conclusion,  a  wrong  argument : 
A  labyrinth  of  malign  intent : 
26 


A  prison  bigger  than  the  sky : 

A  prison  with  unnumbered  doors, 

And  no  way  out :  and  in  that  Hell  was  I . 

Suffering  is  easy — I  have  suffered  too, 

I  n  the  sane  world  where  sound  is  sound 

And  silence  silence :  but  to  go  from  you 

Was  more  than  loss  of  what  is  lost  and  found. 

You,  of  the  perfect  patience ;  you,  the  clear 

Light  set  for  ships  to  watch  for  from  the  sea, 

Shone  over  the  dark  solitude  for  me, 

And  here  awaited  me,  and  I  am  here 

— Drawn  by  such  influence  as  is  known  to  them 

Who,  far  astray  among  the  unmapped  isles, 

Hear  suddenly  a  change  upon  the  wind, 

And  set  their  sails,  and  stem 

Storms  feared  no  longer  and  the  impotent  wiles 

Of  ocean,  and  have  left  their  grief  behind : 

They  have  not  seen  the  light  whereto  they  sail, 

But  know  it  reached,  and  furl  their  sails  and  sing 

Heart-twisting  chanties  of  their  home-coming, 

And  turn  their  torments  to  a  traveller's  tale. 

O  light  above  the  sea,  far-seen,  and  known 

Further  than  sight,  ev'n  to  all  travel's  end : 

O  harbour  where  all  ships  at  last  must  come, 

Immovable  altar  and  abiding  throne, 

Soul  of  the  sanctities  of  home, 

27 


And  simple-hearted  friend ! 

— And  more,  how  pitifully  more,  to  me, 

Who  in  that  faithful  patience  see 

More  than  the  glory  and  beauty  of  high  love, 

More  than  the  surety  of  the  truth  of  God, 

More  than  the  throne,  the  altar  and  the  rod, 

And  the  great  light  above 

— More  than  all  these  you  are,  to  one  so  tired 

As  I ,  who  went  away  from  you 

And  in  the  wilderness  desired 

What  there  I  could  not  trust  for  true : 

More  than  all  these,  now  that  I  stumble  back, 

Drawn  blind  along  the  lucid  track 

Till  the  full  light  is  found,  and  I  can  kneel 

Safe  in  its  warmth,  and  rest  my  head  with  tears 

Upon  your  knee  as  if  I  were  a  child, 

And  feel 

Your  fingers  stroke  away  my  fears — 

Till  I  am  quieted  and  reconciled, 

And  the  bad  silence  shrivels  and  is  dead. 

The  old  known  memories  wake  among  the  stirs 

And  tremors  of  the  winds  and  hours 

— All  the  good  simple  earthly  comforters. 

Here  let  me  kneel,  abandoned  to  your  touch, 

With  not  one  syllable  said 

For  sad  propitiation  of  life's  powers. 

28 


I  love  you,  little  faithful  love,  so  much : 
You  whom  I  left  have  never  loved  me  less, 
And  that's  the  utter  healing.  For  so  long 
I  have  been  ignorant  of  love  and  song 
— You  waited  for  me,  that's  my  happiness — 
I  have  been  ignorant  of  health  and  sleep. 
Hold  me,  and  let  me  weep ! 


29 


VII 

I  asked  too  much  of  love. 

How  should  that  be? 

I  s  any  largeness  set  above 

That  one  infinity? 

What  should  be  richer,  whether  in  day  or  dark, 

Than  that  full  circle  of  returning  things? 

Lo,  what  a  bubbling  music  lifts  the  wings 

Of  the  delighted  lark, 

Through  clearest  air,  immaculable  blue, 

To  the  full  height  and  absolute  of  you ! 

The  range  of  various  and  contentious  seas, 

Have  you  not  ringed  and  known  the  whole  of  these? 

What  is  there  left,  or  what  can  life  devise, 

That  is  not  love's  abundant  enterprise  ? 

The  wail  and  heartbreak  of  the  violin, 

The  round  content  of  oboe  and  of  flute, 

The  sharp  sweet  throbbing  of  the  harp,  the  din 

And  jargon  of  the  triangle  and  bells, 

The  boastful  brass  that  pants  and  swells, 

And  the  clear  wood  whose  voice  is  fine  and  thin : 

The  faint 

Stab  of  the  muted  strings,  and  the  complaint 

Of  the  hoarse  'cello,  and  the  thrum 

Of  the  vociferous  and  intolerant  drum : 

The  haze  and  shimmer  of  according  notes, 

30 


The  crossed  and  lifted  swords  of  music's  fire, 

That  smite  the  earth  into  a  living  choir, 

And  call  forth  singing  from  immortal  throats : 

These  to  one  bosom  love  can  gather  in, 

These  to  a  single  song  can  love  transmute — 

Giver  and  guide  and  gatherer  of  dreams 

That  in  their  scattering  and  return  are  free, 

Ev'n  as  the  whole  wild  pattern  of  earth's  streams 

Has  birth  and  end  and  meaning  in  one  sea ! 

Why,  go  to  love  and  ask  it  for  the  worth 

Of  liberal  Heaven  and  grateful  earth, 

The  seed,  the  soil,  the  flower,  the  corn, 

Beauty  eternally  re-born ! — 

And  love  will  give,  and  never  miss  the  gift. 

When  the  young  love  is  breaking  into  flower, 

And  stands  upon  the  border  of  her  hour, 

Alert,  and  sweet,  and  swift, 

How  different  does  she  show 

From  all  the  flowers  that  ever  bloomed  in  time ! 

This  separate  sovereign  loveliness  can  rhyme 

Only  with  its  own  moment.  What's  to  know, 

To  gather  from  that  shy  and  trustful  pride  ? 

Or  what  has  innocence  to  hide  ? 

Then  go — 

Go  to  her,  brave  her,  ask !  Be  sure 

She  is  as  kind  as  she  is  pure : 


She  slept,  and  wakes,  and  tries  to  keep 

The  hush  and  flame  of  sleep. 

Go  to  her! — Nay: 

She  falters,  ruddy  with  amaze, 

A  dryad  half  awake, 

With  wonder  wid'ning  in  her  gaze 

Like  ripples  on  a  lake, 

And,  asking,  you  may  hurt  her.  Come  away, 

While  there  is  time,  while  all  is  yet  to  say, 

Nor  tempt  the  moment.  Love,  you  know,  is  strange : 

Men  call  love  changeless,  but  the  world  will  change. 

I  asked  too  much  of  love,  I  know  not  how : 

Her  eyes  laughed  at  me  under  a  clear  brow, 

And  then  one  day  nothing  was  as  before. 

Through  the  still  hours — O  debt  no  love  can  pay ! — 

My  love  lay  quiet  till  the  end  of  day, 

And  then  rose  up,  and  went,  and  came  no  more. 


VIII 

You  see  this  child 

Who  in  to-morrow  knows  not  yesterday : 

Let  him  stand  for  the  symbol  of  that  wild 

Pulse  of  the  world's  untaught  unteachable  heart 

Where  all  incredible  emotions  start 

Like  dust  of  flowers  in  the  sun's  sudden  ray. 

— You  know  the  hush  before 

The  orchestra  begins : 

You  shiver  at  the  shutting  of  a  door, 

And  sicken  at  your  new-remembered  sins. 

— My  dear, 

Do  you  remember,  in  the  early  year, 

When  for  a  little  silence  we  were  one, 

How  our  thought  took  the  colour  of  the  sun? 

The  waves  of  apple-blossom  broke 

In  brilliant  foam  against  the  blue: 

You  moaned  upon  my  lips,  and  stirred  and  spoke, 

And  then  were  still  again.  The  world  was  you. 

The  world  was  what  your  loving  is 

— A  shaft  of  light  through  dust  of  mysteries. 

The  world  was  what  your  lips  forgot  to  speak 

Upon  my  lips.  I  looked  up  and  saw  wings 

Like  swords  bare  in  the  sunlight :  black  they  rose, 

First  black,  then  silver — silver  again,  and  black, 

I  n  long  attenuated  track 

33 


Across  the  thin  faint  daytime :  love  grew  weak, 

Sagged,  and  forgot  its  own  rememberings : 

Our  hearts,  unwilling,  knew  what  music  knows ; 

And  you  went  from  me  as  the  silence  goes 

At  that  first  crying  of  the  attempted  strings. 

My  arms  were  hungrier  than  a  mother's  breast 

That  cannot  suckle  the  soft  lips  it  needs. 

My  hopes  were  bruised  and  broken  reeds. 

My  mouth  said :  'God  knows  best/ 

And  my  heart  gave  my  mouth  the  lie. 

The  black  and  silver  wings  against  the  sky 

Flew  to  the  peace  that  you  had  robbed  me  of. 

— O  unforeseen  and  unreturning  love, 

We  had  had  our  moment !  Every  moment  after 

Was  bitter  with  the  hint  of  your  return, 

And  you  returned,  and  were  not  you.  The  laughter 

Of  devils  drowns  the  cries  of  souls  that  burn, 

And  that's  the  secret  dreadfulness  of  hell. 

Had  you  been  harsh,  it  had  been  well : 

But  you  were  tender  when  you  came, 

And  leant  to  me  with  the  old  smile  and  kiss : 

You  said:  'Do  you  remember  that,  and  this?' — 

And  nothing  was  the  same. 

— You  see  this  child.  He  waits 

Unconscious,  by  the  undivulging  gates: 

His  ear  has  heard  the  tuning:  and,  intent, 

34 


He  guesses  what  shall  leap  and  flower 

To  top  the  tall  triumphant  hour 

When  instrument  is  wed  to  instrument. 

So  is  it  with  the  childish  heart  of  man 

That  has  learnt  nothing  since  the  world  began. 

O  infinitely  touching! — pilgrim  still 

Up  the  recurring  disappointment  hill ! 

O  heart  as  breakable  as  the  first  heart  was 

That  faltered,  strange  to  loss ! 

O  heart  as  flower-like,  with  each  morning  new, 

Brave  to  drink  disappointment  up  like  dew! 

O  vessel  squandered  on  the  careless  sea ! 

O  my  one  love,  the  one  love  gone  from  me ! 

— It  is  not  age  that  breaks  and  stales: 

It  is  not  impotence  that  fails : 

It  is  not  weakness  that  despairs! 

— The  rash  and  splendid  and  impatient  airs 

That  blow  about  the  meadows  and  the  shores, 

And  search  the  noon  for  clouds,  and  shake  the  bells 

To  clamour  in  unconquered  citadels, 

And  take  the  stars  and  stations  in  their  course 

— These,  it  is  these,  that  break  the  heart,  that  lose 

What  they  have  learnt  not  to  refuse : 

Sweet  dancing  fools, 

So  large,  so  bold,  so  ignorant  of  the  span 

Set  for  the  reach  and  amplitude  of  man ! — 

35 


Ours  was  the  summer  hour :  and  now  the  tune, 

Rhythmic,  returns  according  to  the  rules, 

And  ends  not  late  nor  soon. 

You  see  this  child :  he,  ev'n  as  you  and  I , 

Will  watch  that  black  and  silver  stab  the  sky, 

Flying  into  the  silence,  flying  free. 

Why  tell  him  what  he  will  not  understand? 

The  ship  forever  puts  off  from  the  land, 

And  finds  forever  nothing  but  the  sea. 

It  burns — the  flower-flame  that  the  leaves  uncover, 

Setting  the  heart  free  to  accept  the  spring 

— The  mendicant  of  morning,  and  the  lover 

Of  the  unforeseen  and  unreturning  thing. 


IX 

Was  it  then  I  that  went  away,  or  you  ? 
There  are  two  pictures  clear  before  my  eyes. 
Dreams  are  not  hard  for  truth  to  improvise, 
Nor  truth  for  dreams  to  squander  and  undo. 
You  have  watched  how  birds  will  scatter  as  by  rhyme, 
Wheeling,  extending,  keeping  place  and  time ; 
How  the  slow  suns  and  planets  quick 
Have  danced  their  own  arithmetic: 
How,  sure  and  huge,  through  history's  nebulous  stir, 
The  follies  and  the  wars  recur. 
These  have  their  measure,  their  accordance  these, 
Ev'n  as  the  pendulum  of  tidal  seas : 
But  the  bewilderment  and  smart 
Of  the  flawed  mirror  and  cracked  heart 
Set  the  twin  flanges  of  the  mind  apart, 
And  make  a  silence  where 
The  forest  fires  of  madness  start 
And  are  lifted  on  the  air. 

They  bring  the  treacherous  and  the  various  pains 
That  only  my  sad  brethren  understand, 
And  worlds  as  numerous  as  the  disordered  grains 
Of  blown  and  tortured  sand. 
1 1  seemed  you  went  because  I  frightened  you : 
1 1  seemed  you  stayed,  and  I  must  go : 
There  are  two  pictures ;  both  are  true, 

37 


2346 i :  > 


And  each  so  absolute  in  woe, 

It  makes  perdition  pleasant.  Let  me  be ! — 

Sit  with  your  knees  hunched,  looking  out  to  sea, 

And  borrowing  from  the  future  all  you  miss 

I  n  the  refused  or  unattempted  kiss. 

Be  once  again,  and  be  forever  now, 

Young  and  unhappy,  with  a  grief  as  dear 

As  that  horizon  slowly  coming  clear 

Between  discurtaining  vapours,  which  allow 

First  but  a  silver  dimness,  then  the  pale 

Gleam  of  lost  sea,  and  then  the  golden  sail. 

O  griefs  as  fatal  as  the  unfolding  hour, 

Rich  and  perpetual  as  the  thrusting  flower, 

Urgent  as  all  creation,  and  as  mist 

Tenuous !  O  broken  heart  and  lips  unkissed ! — 

Your  eyes  are  shadowed  with  the  thoughts  unknown, 

Stored  in  the  brain — your  masters,  yet  your  own : 

Shadow  of  thought  is  mixed  with  light  of  tears : 

Your  world  is  spangled  with  a  double  fire 

Of  opal-coloured  cloud — the  clouds  aspire, 

Part,  and  the  sea  gleams,  and  the  sail  appears. 

Your  grief  is  gathered,  concentrated,  spent 

On  that  one  ship's  one  message :  sweet, 

You  are  so  gentle  and  so  innocent, 

You  cannot,  though  you  would, 

Into  your  own  unhappiness  retreat : 

38 


Your  grief's  as  large  as  your  love,  and  as  free ; 

They  run  like  spells  and  blessings  on  the  sea, 

And  reach  your  ship,  and  bid  its  luck  be  good. 

— What  have  I  said,  or  what  recalled  ?  The  sin 

That  burst  my  mind  and  let  the  madness  in ! 

For  I  it  was — no  other  man  than  I — 

Who  came  where  you  sat  pouring  out  your  youth 

On  fragile  falsehoods  of  the  mist,  and  truth 

Of  sea,  and  sand,  and  sky, 

And  tore  you  from  the  peace  of  tears, 

And  gave  leave  to  the  jealous  years 

To  tread  your  flower-like  fortunes  in  the  mud, 

And  break  the  pride  that  blossomed  in  your  blood. 

So,  all  was  spent.  And  who  has  led  me  back, 

By  what  unguessable  track, 

To  first  perfection  and  the  best  of  day  ? 

And  is  it  you  at  all,  and  not  some  wraith, 

Born  of  my  dead  contentment's  graveyard  breath  ? 

Should  I  not  rather  say 

That  here  through  years  it  has  been  mine  to  stay, 

And  that  you  went,  and  now  return  ? — Alas, 

The  old  tormenting  question ! — pictures  twain 

Stamped  on  the  civil  warfare  of  the  brain, 

That  cross  each  other  as  they  pass  and  pass, 

And  yet  are  both  so  certain  and  so  plain ! 

— Well,  wraith  or  whim  or  memory,  what  you  will, 

39 


Let  me  sit  down  beside  you,  and  be  still, 

And  watch  the  pale  dislimning  of  the  cloud, 

The  sun  so  faithful  and  the  sail  so  proud, 

And  all  so  apt  unto  the  still-fresh  youth 

And  shattering  sweetness  of  accepted  truth. 

I  will  not  travel  further.  The  ship's  gone, 

The  mists  close  in  again,  and  night  comes  on, 

And  when  it  falls  we  shall  be  sitting  so, 

I ,  all  too  sorry  for  the  wrong 

I  did  you  long  years  since — so  strangely  long ! — 

To  know,  or  ask  to  know, 

The  comfort  of  repentance :  you,  restored, 

By  exquisite  alchemy  of  Love  the  Lord, 

To  that  clear,  beautiful  and  early  sorrow. 

The  gulls  will  cry  about  us  as  we  sit. 

As  for  our  love,  I  shall  not  speak  of  it, 

And  you  will  have  no  word  of  it  to  say. 

Night's  black  but  deepens  the  diurnal  gray. 

Here's  peace,  and  night,  and  after  that  the  morrow. 


40 


X 

The  big  procession  of  the  year  begins ; 

The  dark  earth  breaks  beneath  the  covering  frost ; 

The  thrust  of  buried  hope  and  beauty  lost 

Joins  issue  with  old  tyranny,  and  wins. 

Hark! — the  thin  horn  beyond  the  furthest  hill 

Proclaims  the  day  of  pageant ;  laughter  comes 

Along  the  water-course  like  beaten  drums ; 

The  world's  a  cup  for  ecstasy  to  fill. 

Against  the  sun  a  fleece  of  cloud  hangs  white ; 

Adventure  knows  not  what  it  has  to  find ; 

And  up  into  the  rainy  brilliant  wind 

The  childish  fingers  push,  expecting  light. 

The  first  thoughts  coming  in  your  head 

Are  of  content  and  fellowship ; 

A  dust  of  green  from  tip  to  tip 

Of  boughs  innumerable  is  shed; 

And  joy  is  what  must  happen  soon, 

And  faith  is  what  the  blackbird  knows, 

And  colour  linked  with  colour  flows 

About  the  country  like  a  tune ; 

And  are  these  bells,  or  whirring  wings, 

That  lure,  and  climb,  and  call,  and  float? — 

Is  that  a  bird,  taking  the  perfect  note, 

Or  my  own  blood  that  sings? 

Lo !  as  the  master's  gesture  lifts  together 


Tumult  and  wings  of  music  in  one  flight, 

So  the  clear-fronted  spirit  of  spring  weather 

Has  turned  all  airs  and  echoes  to  delight! 

— Yet  were  spring  wasted,  dissipated, 

Squandered,  abandoned,  casual  here  and  there, 

In  points  and  pinions  of  etherial  brightness : 

In  sudden  whiteness 

Of  waves  that  curl  and  break  far  out  to  sea : 

I  n  sunny-sparkling  peaks,  elated 

Where  only  light  can  find  them :  in  the  free 

And  wandering  colour  of  the  spray-cloud  that  shades 

The  thunder  and  the  glitter  of  cascades : 

I  n  delicate,  terrible,  imperious,  rare 

Jets  of  aspiring  and  enkindled  air 

— So  were  spring  spent,  gone  ere  it  came, 

In  broken  promise  and  lost  flame, 

In  memory  of  a  voice  heard  calling  through 

The  hollow  hour  of  sunset — gone  and  spent, 

Had  it  not  been  that  you  were  innocent, 

And  all  spring's  innocent  fires  at  one  in  you. 

For  how  shall  man's  unhappy  heart 

Not  fear  the  future's  various  ghost, 

When,  seeking  to  embrace  the  most, 

He  lets  the  least  depart? 

Mocked  and  tormented  by  his  own  wid'ning  scope, 

And  range  of  sorrow  with  sorrow  still  further 

ranging, 
42 


Dazzled  by  the  changeless  infinite  in  things 

changing, 

And  disappointed  in  the  act  of  hope, 
He  turns  like  a  blind  child  to  the  warmth  of  spring 
This  way,  then  that — the  flame's  in  everything, 
And  peace  not  anywhere.  What  you  have  done 
I  s  to  give  place  and  meaning  to  the  sun. 
I  n  you,  achievement's  real :  in  you,  the  hour 
Comes  with  intention  and  departs  with  power; 
Essential  to  the  turning  day, 
I  n  evanescence  fulfilling  its  very  soul, 
Since  its  due  purpose  is  to  pass  away 
— The  cipher  that  illuminates  the  scroll, 
The  part  that  means  the  whole. 
O  sanity  of  swift  desires, 
O  unity  of  wandering  fires, 
O  chaste  and  free,  serene  and  wild, 
O  lovely  mother-hearted  child, 
To  you,  for  you,  to  be  in  you  fulfilled, 
The  winds  shake  out  the  rain,  the  brown  birds  build, 
The  sun  comes  up,  the  moments  intervene, 
And  the  stars  follow  where  the  .sun  has  been! 
Punctual  the  moments  that  the  seasons  breed, 
And  packed  with  purpose  as  a  flower  with  seed ! — 
The  captured  and  escaping  airs 
Of  forest  and  attuning  hill 

43 


Enrich  your  praying  with  their  prayers, 

And  mix  their  music  in  your  will. 

Your  look  consoles  the  quenched  spark 

That  should  have  crowned  the  Pleiades : 

For  you  the  heav'n-defying  lark 

Scatters  his  notes  to  find  the  seas : 

In  you  those  earth-entangling  lights, 

The  fireflies  of  our  mental  nights, 

That  make  a  million  dawns  at  once, 

Pretending  to  the  place  of  suns 

— The  rhythm,  the  range,  the  bud,  the  flower, 

The  music  and  the  marching  hour, 

The  phantom  cities  that  a§pire 

Through  cloud,  and  set  the  cloud  on  fire ; 

All  seeking,  whispering,  burning  things ; 

The  ships  with  sails  like  sea-gulls'  wings; 

The  voices  on  the  hills,  the  voice 

That  tells  the  valley  to  rejoice ; 

Confusion,  wonder,  effort,  stir; 

Danger  the  bright  discomforter ; 

Spring's  broken  plenitude  of  light — 

Here  in  one  harmony  unite. 

You  have  plucked  the  flower  nor  lost  the  dew, 

And  I  have  loved  the  world  in  you. 


44 


SONNETS 


I 

OCOLD  remembrance,  careful-careless  kiss, 
That  does  not  wake  to  hope  with  waking 
day, 

And  at  the  hour  of  bed-time  does  not  say : 
'That  was  for  rapture,  that  for  peace,  but  this 
Burns  for  the  night's  more  terrible  auspices, 

And  pangs  and  sweets  of  doubt  and  disarray!' — 
Yet  in  one  kiss  two  hearts  found  once  the  way 
From  perfect  ignorance  to  perfect  bliss. 

Love  has  so  many  voices,  low  and  high, 

Such  range  of  reason,  such  delight  of  rhyme ! 
Yet  when  I  asked  love  such  a  simple  thing 
As  why  the  autumn  comes  where  came  the 

spring, 

The  only  soul  that  answered  me  was  I, 
And  love  was  silent  then  for  the  first  time. 


47 


II 

Dear,  think  of  youth ! — the  shining  vassalage 

Of  doubt  to  dream,  of  time  to  timeless  birth ; 

The  worthiness  of  ardours  hardly  worth 
Their  hour  of  posture  on  the  morning  stage, 
When  wrong  and  insult  called  for  happy  rage, 

Not  for  lean  compromise  and  sideways  mirth ; 

And  grief,  because  it  blacked  the  total  earth, 
Was  brighter  than  the  guarded  gleams  of  age. 

Was  youth  so  fair  then,  and  was  youth  so  kind? 

Was  youth  so  true  ?  Was  youth  indeed  so  young  ? — 
The  body  tense  with  soul,  and  every  wind 

Loose  in  the  hedgerows ! — Well,  that  song  is  sung : 
Heap  up  the  embers,  dear,  and  draw  the  blind : 

Upon  the  fire  the  last,  best  dream  is  flung. 


48 


Ill 

See  how  our  dreams  are  shrivelled  in  the  fire ! — 
And  shall  we  close  our  books  and  nod  our  heads, 
And  take  our  cold  ways  to  our  separate  beds, 

And  shut  our  eyes  and  hearts  against  desire? 

Nay,  one  last  glance  will  never  overtire 

The  heart  that  locks  its  tears,  the  eye  that  sheds : 
Mark  how  the  vibrant  blues  and  lambent  reds 

Mix  their  thin  hisses  in  a  muted  choir! 

The  little  worms  of  death  have  eaten  love 
Where  it  lies  buried  with  a  tomb  above — 

The  little  worms  that  know  no  other  game, 
The  fiery  worms  that  die  not,  worms  of  hell ! — 
Yet  ah,  the  flaming  beauty,  loved  too  well, 

Of  dreams  that  we  abandon  to  the  flame! 


49 


IV 

The  Prince  of  Darkness,  as  I  understand, 
Is  a  most  affable,  complacent  prince: 
His  words  that  soothe,  his  theses  that  convince, 

Are  like  a  green  shade  in  a  thirsty  land. 

At  the  cross-roads  he  takes  you  by  the  hand : 
He  cannot  bear  to  watch  you  shiver  and  wince 
Between  the  painful  and  the  pleasant — since 

The  pleasant  is  the  path  himself  has  planned. 

In  the  cold  hour  when  we  no  longer  care 

Whether  our  souls  be  saved  or  damned,  we  strain 
And  agonise  iri  impotence  of  prayer, 

Not  for  the  saint's,  not  for  the  angel's  station, 
But  for  the  strength,  the  strength  to  choose  again — 
To  see  salvation  and  to  choose  damnation. 


V 

It  is  not  so,  though  men  have  made  it  so 
Till  they  have  graven  falsehood  in  truth's  eyes : 
They  have  set  happiness  for  virtue's  prize, 

But  happiness  is  virtue,  as  we  know 

Who  have  staked  all  upon  life's  mortal  throw, 
And  wrung  from  death  our  immortalities: 
Only  the  moment's  happiness  is  wise, 

And  all  the  centuries  are  cold  in  woe. 

Truth's  eyes  must  still  look  outward :  turned  within, 
They  by  inversion  grow  to  falsehood.  Far 
Apart  as  the  two  selves  of  one  self  are 
Is  virtue's  quiet  from  the  trouble  of  sin : 
And  lo,  the  moment  we  were  wise  to  win, 
Hung  in  the  dome  of  silence  like  a  star ! 


VI 

The  creeping  hours  have  caught  us  unawares, 
And  while  we  yet  stand  breathless  from  the  thrill 
Of  the  warm  noon,  the  twilight  wide  and  chill 

Has  stol'n  the  colour  from  the  golden  airs: 

The  dead  and  equal  light  of  evening  bares 

The  world  of  shade  ere  shade  shall  have  its  fill ; 
And  the  vague  gleams  on  river,  fold,  and  hill 

Are  lost  and  lonely  as  unanswered  prayers. 

Draw  closer  to  me,  dear :  the  greater  need 
Must  breed  the  greater  solace.  All  about 
The  moods  and  marvels  of  the  day  go  out 
Like  candles  blown  upon :  the  heat,  the  speed, 
Are  sped :  but  all  things  bring  their  own  redress, 
And  love  that's  weary  is  not  love  the  less. 


VII 

We  had  no  test,  no  standard — there's  the  fault : 
We  gauged  not  what  we  earned  nor  what  we  spent 
We  loved,  but  knew  not  whither  love  was  bent, 

Till  to  itself  its  blindness  called  a  halt. 

'Love  is  the  salt  of  life — but  if  the  salt 

Have  lost  its  savour?' — runs  the  argument: 
What's  left  of  lovely,  what  of  excellent? 

What  shall  we  trust?  what  cleave  to?  what  exalt? 

Ah !  dear,  the  test  is  that  there  is  no  test, 
And  the  unanswering  silences  ring  true. 
How  should  the  doers  tell  us  what  they  do, 

Or  the  deep  heart's  confession  stand  confessed? 

Once,  to  love  love — then,  to  love  you — seemed  best ; 
But  now  the  love  of  love  is  love  of  you. 


53 


VIII 

I  marvel  at  you  in  the  morning  light, 
Whereto  your  subtle  braveries  unfold : 
You  look  so  tragic-pure,  so  crystal-cold, 
So  warm  with  wonder  and  with  love  so  bright. 
O  beauty's  strength  that  makes  the  world  seem 

slight! 

O  beauty's  youth  that  makes  our  hopes  seem  old ! — 
Withdrawn,  withdrawn! — O  hard  to  have  and 

hold! 
O  lost,  and  lost  again,  like  faith  in  flight ! 

Could  I  but  fix  you  thus ! — with  lips  apart 
Drooping  for  melancholy  of  memories, 

Not  yours  but  ours ! — with  eyes  where  ardours  start 
Of  childhood,  avid  of  infinities! — 

Now  music's  cry  is  hushed  at  music's  heart, 
And  beauty  knows  the  thing  that  beauty  is. 


54 


IX 
I  walk  the  noisy  streets,  and  all  the  while 

Women  and  men  throng  me  on  every  side,. 

And  suddenly  falls  something  to  divide 
Them  the  divine  from  me  the  vain  and  vile: 
Suddenly  I  am  lonely  as  an  isle     - 

I  n  seas  unvoyaged  and  unverified, 

And  from  me,  wave  on  wave  and  tide  on  tide, 
The  world  recedes,  and  mile  on  endless  mile. 

Some  call  the  world  a  shadow-world :  to  me 

I 1  seems  too  much  a  world  of  flesh  and  bone, 
Of  will  and  action,  resolute  and  free, 

Loud  as  a  tempest,  solid  as  a  stone. 
All  these  are  real  and  must  always  be, 
And  I  alone  a  shadow,  I  alone. 


55 


X 

I  have  an  enemy  far  worse  than  hate, 

Far  worse  than  danger,  worse  than  any  wrong 
That's  cried  upon  the  wind  in  any  song, 

Or  feared  in  prophecy  of  any  fate. 

My  bonds,  impalpable  and  uncreate, 

Are  each  as  sly  as  thought,  and  each  as  strong ; 
And  when  I  turn  for  hope  where  hopes  belong, 

My  enemy  is  always  at  the  gate. 

You  alone  can,  dispersing  my  despair, 
Draw  me  from  shadows  into  vital  air : 

You  alone  heal  me  with  your  tranquil  touch. 
To  you  it  means  so  little,  as  you  pass 
Like  light  along  the  fields :  to  me,  alas ! 

In  solitude,  it  means  so  much,  so  much. 


XI 
Love,  do  you  love  me  ?  All  the  winds  go  by, 

And  all  the  days  therewith;  and  still,  and  still, 

The  lonely  tree  upon  the  lonely  hill 
Stands  dark  and  changeless  in  the  changing  sky : 
Beneath  it  cry  the  waves,  and  the  winds  cry 

About  it,  and  have  never  cried  their  fill ; 

They  cry  for  wasted  faith  and  broken  will, 
And  every  wave  and  every  wind  is  I . 

Love,  will  you  love  me  when  the  winds  forsake 
The  hollow  day  and  hollow  night,  and  leave, 
In  place  of  our  warm  human  hearts  that  grieve, 

Only  the  lack  of  all  worth  grieving  for? — 
When  there's  no  faith  to  waste  nor  will  to  break, 
And  the  waves  cry  and  the  winds  cry  no  more. 


57 


XII 

Once  was  I  loved  according  to  my  need, 

When,  for  supreme  assurance,  breast  to  breast, 
We  through  the  beat  of  mutual  blood  confessed 

The  spirit's  purpose  in  the  body's  deed. 

Then  morning  was  my  thought,  and  youth  my  creed, 
And  spring  my  music ;  then — the  ultimate  test ! — 
We  did  not  plead  with  love  to  yield  its  best, 

We  lived  the  best  for  which  all  lovers  plead. 

But  now  a  note  of  difference  brings  despair; 

The  leaping  flame  that  fed  the  vaunting  fires 
Flickers  and  pales ;  now  breath  can  scarcely  dare 

To  tempt  the  moment  of  immense  desires, 
And  that  great  starry  castle  in  the  air 

Shakes,  and  doubt  walks  among  the  thousand 
spires. 


XIII 

They  say  that  dying  men  see  all  their  past, 
But  that,  I  think,  can  never  be :  the  vice 
Of  brainless  brooding  over  passion's  price; 

The  surging  dark ;  the  day  that  stands  aghast 

At  its  own  cynic  loveliness ;  the  vast 

And  idiot  world  of  terror's  fire  and  ice — 

These  are  for  once,  no  soul  could  bear  them  twice ; 

They  kill  us,  but  we  are  done  with  them  at  last. 

We  are  done  with  them,  we  sleep,  we  shut  our  eyes ; 
I  n  death  we  are  free  and  fortunate  and  wise — 

Yet,  if  that  moment  of  my  final  breath 
Can  call,  from  all  my  memories,  you  alone, 
Your  beauty  for  my  grief  shall  half  atone, 

And  life  shall  almost  be  worth  while,  in  death. 


59 


XIV 

A  pretty  picture  of  the  innocent  May, 

When  night  and  day  reciprocate  the  hour — 
The  Milky  Way  a  hawthorn  hedge  in  flower, 

And  every  hawthorn  hedge  a  Milky  Way! — 

Such  has  love  seemed  to  some :  they  have  their  day ; 
They  take  their  pleasant  impotence  for  power ; 
They  are  good  and  happy — who  decries  their 
dower  ? 

Who  that  has  loved  would  not  be  ev'n  as  they  ? 

For  love  is  born  in  pain  and  bred  to  loss ; 
Others  it  saves,  itself  it  cannot  save; 

Its  dreams  are  thick  with  fears  past  dreaming 

of: 

The  lover  is  naked ;  all  he  had,  he  gave : 
Only  he  bears,  as  Christ  bore  his  own  cross, 
The  burden  of  intolerable  love. 


60 


XV 
Despairs  I  have  met  and  conquered — who  has  not? 

Man's  high  and  restless  heart  is  braced  for  these; 

He  has  his  candour  for  the  mysteries, 
His  spring  and  summer  for  the  years  that  rot 
I  nto  oblivion ;  bravery  is  hot 

Against  the  cold  leap  of  the  seeking  seas ; 

The  soul  is  lawful  by  its  own  decrees ; 
And  grief  remembers  what  mere  joy  forgot. 
But  happiness  defeats  me :  in  the  sun 

I  shiver  with  chill  fear  and  sick  surmise, 
Suddenly :  when  my  easy  task  is  done, 

I  know  my  task  too  hard,  my  way  too  steep. 

Beauty  is  young  and  happy  in  your  eyes, 
And  when  I  see  that  beauty  I  must  weep. 


61 


XVI 

I  tracked  my  sin  and  bound  it — but  they  err 
Who  have  set  different  worlds  for  love  and  sin 
I  forced  my  sin  to  silence,  shut  it  in 
The  night  of  memory  where  stars  confer—- 
Dumb stars  and  strong,  sequel  and  harbinger : 
But  all  without  is  marred  by  what's  within, 
And  lo,  my  best  thought  to  my  worst  akin, 
Myself  half  gaoler  and  half  prisoner! 

Shall  it  not  be,  when  all  things  cease  to  be ; 
When  God  fulfils  his  purpose,  and  lets  go 
The  tortured  twisting  flames  of  life,  and  so 

Discrowns  the  mountain  and  dispels  the  sea — 
That  he  shall  look  in  his  own  heart,  and  know 

The  thing  he  caged,  the  thing  he  hurt,  was  he? 


62 


XVI I 

Come,  dear,  and  play  this  game  with  me— undo 
The  pattern  of  mixed  lives,  the  interplay 
Of  slender-footed  shade  and  dancing  day : 

The  glade  is  green  and  clear,  the  air  is  blue, 

The  dark  leaves  push  between,  the  flames  spill 

through, 

And  like  a  flight  of  starlings  break  away, 
Till,  netted  in  the  shadows,  they  portray 

The  irreparable  oneness  of  us  two. 

For  thus  two  lives,  divided  and  distract, 
Obey  a  common  music,  move  together, 

See  double  hopes  curbed  in  a  single  act, 
And  hold  one  purpose  by  alternate  tether. 

The  shade  must  answer  where  the  flame  must  fall, 

And  each  be  saved  in  both  or  not  at  all. 


XVIII 

Those  were  our  freedoms,  and  we  come  to  this ! 
The  climbing  road  that  lures  the  climbing  feet 
Is  lost:  there  lies  no  mist  above  the  wheat, 

Wherethrough  to  glimpse  the  silver  precipice, 

Far  off,  about  whose  base  the  white  seas  hiss 

I  n  spray :  the  world  grows  narrow  and  complete : 
We  have  lost  our  perils  in  the  certain  sweet : 

We  have  sold  our  great  horizons  for  a  kiss. 

To  every  hill  there  is  a  lowly  slope, 

But  some  have  heights  beyond  all  height — so  high, 
They  make  new  worlds  for  the  adventuring  eye. 
We  for  achievement  have  forgone  our  hope, 
And  shall  not  see  another  morning  ope, 
Nor  the  new  moon  come  into  the  new  sky. 


64 


XIX. 

Where  is  our  freedom  sought,  and  where  to  seek? 

The  voices  of  the  various  world  agree 

The  future's  ours :  to  hope  is  to  be  free : 
Only  to  doubt,  to  fear,  is  to  be  weak. 
Have  you  not  felt  upon  your  calm,  clear  cheek 

The  kiss  of  the  bright  wind  of  liberty? 

What  more  is  there  to  ask,  what  more  to  be  ? 
Peace,  peace,  my  soul,  and  let  the  silence  speak! 

To  hope  is  to  be  free?  Nay,  hope's  a  slave 
To  every  chance ;  hope  is  the  same  as  fear ; 

Hope  trembles  at  the  wind,  the  star,  the  wave, 
The  voice,  the  mood,  the  music ;  hope  stands  near 

The  chilly  threshold  of  the  waiting  grave, 

And  when  the  silence  speaks,  hope  does  not  hear. 


XX 

There  was  a  noise  of  voices  in  the  wood, 

And  then  the  shine  of  knives,  and  after  that 

Only  his  lovely  body  lying  flat, 
And  dreadful  bubbling  of  his  bitter  blood. 
I  made  a  pillow  for  his  head,  a  hood 

Of  shadow  for  his  eyes — he  smiled  thereat. 

They  say  that  death's  the  only  democrat, 
For  all  men  die,  the  bad  men  and  the  good. 

And  is  this  all  that  we  have  done  with  life, 
And  have  we  wasted  living  on  this  wise — 

The  summer  wood,  the  sudden  noise  of  strife, 
The  fading  body  and  the  swarming  flies, 

With  none  to  judge  the  justice  of  the  knife, 
Or  read  the  heart  of  him  that  smiles  and  dies? 


66 


XXI 

This  is  the  horror  that,  night  after  night, 
Sits  grinning  on  my  pillow — that  I  meant 
To  mix  the  peace  of  being  innocent 

With  the  warm  thrill  of  seeking  out  delight : 

This  is  the  final  blasphemy,  the  blight 
On  all  pure  purpose  and  divine  intent — 
To  dress  the  selfish  thought,  the  indolent, 

In  the  priest's  sable  or  the  angel's  white. 

For  God's  sake,  if  you  sin,  take  pleasure  in  it, 
And  do  it  for  the  pleasure.  Do  not  say : 

'Behold  the  spirit's  liberty! — a  minute 
Will  see  the  earthly  vesture  break  away 

And  God  shine  through.'  Say:  'Here's  a  sin — I'll 

sin  it ; 
And  there's  the  price  of  sinning — and  I'll  pay.' 


67 


XXII 

Three  lovely  angels  guard  the  gates  of  Hell — 
Three  great  archangels  with  the  saddest  eyes 
That  ever  held  memories  of  Paradise, 

As  the  dusk  pool  we  know  of  in  the  dell 

Gathered  last  night  a  host  of  stars  that  fell, 

And  kept  them  still  and  clear.  The  three  surmise 
The  purpose  of  their  mournful  enterprise : 

By  name  they  are  Michael,  Raphael,  Gabriel. 

The  guards  of  Heav'n  have  mournful  work  to  do: 
They  are  Michael,  Raphael,  Gabriel  by  name: 
Their  eyes  are  sadder  than  the  fallen  flame 

In  the  dusk  pool  we  know  of,  I  and  you. 

Some  souls  say:  'It  is  Hell  we  are  travelling  to;' 
Some:  'It  is  Heav'n.'  The  angels  are  the  same. 


68 


XXIII 

Our  love  is  hurt,  and  the  bad  world  goes  on 
Moving  to  its  conclusion :  in  a  year 
This  corn  now  reaped  will  come  again  to  ear, 

The  moon  will  shine  as  last  night  the  moon  shone; 

The  tide,  whose  thought  is  the  moon's  thought,  will 

don 

The  silver  livery  of  subjection.  Dear, 
Is  it  not  strange  that  hearts  will  hope  and  fear 

And  break,  when  our  hearts,  broken  now,  are  gone  ? 

If  this  were  true,  life's  movement  would  rebel, 
And  curdle  to  its  source,  as  blood  to  the  heart 
When  the  cold  fires  of  indignation  start 

From  their  obscure  lair  in  the  body. — Well, 
I  f  for  us  two  to  part  were  just  to  part, 

All  years  would  have  one  pointless  tale  to  tell. 


XXIV 

In  the  old  days  came  freedom  with  a  sword. 
Ev'n  so :  but  also  freedom  came  with  wings 
Fanning  the  faint  and  purple  bloom  that  clings 

To  the  great  twilight  where  our  dreams  are  stored. 

Freedom  was  what  the  waters  would  afford 

That  yet  obeyed  the  white  moon's  whisperings, 
And  freedom  leapt  and  listened  in  the  strings 

Of  dulcimer  and  lute  and  clavichord. 

In  the  old  days? — But  those  old  days  are  now. 
O  merciful,  O  bright,  O  valiant  brow, 

Can  you  seek  freedom  that  way  and  I  this? 
Not  in  the  single  note  is  music  free, 
But  where  creation's  climbing  fires  agree 

In  multitudes,  in  flights,  in  silences. 


70 


XXV 

Shall  we  mark  off  our  little  patch  of  power 
From  time's  compulsive  process  ?  Shall  we  sit 
With  memory,  warming  our  weak  hands  at  it, 

And  say :  'So  be  it ;  we  have  had  one  hour'  ? 

Surely  the  mountains  are  a  better  dower, 
With  their  dark  scope  and  cloudy  infinite, 
Than  small  perfection,  trivial  exquisite, 

'Mid  all  that  dark  the  brightness  of  a  flower! 

Lovers  are  not  themselves :  they  are  more,  they  are 

all: 

For  them  are  past  and  future  spread  together 
Like  a  green  landscape  lit  by  golden  weather : 

For  them  the  rhythmic  change  conjectural 
Of  time  and  place  is  but  the  question  whether 

Their  God  shall  stand  (as  stand  he  must)  or  fall. 


XXVI 

In  you  I  see  more  than  yourself,  the  thing, 

The  proud  and  perfect  thing,  that  now  you  are 
I  see  you  restless,  young,  irregular ; 

Unmarried  yet,  unmeet  for  marrying; 

Slim  as  a  flower-stem  in  a  windy  Spring, 
Shy  as  the  first  weak  splendour  of  a  star — 
With  all  your  years  untried,  to  make  or  mar — 

A  child,  presaging  and  remembering. 

Is  any  life  than  a  child's  life  more  strange, 
Or  any  memory  longer  than  a  child's? — 

I  n  you  I  see  old  age,  whose  thoughts  can  range 
Over  a  continent  of  woods  and  wilds 

And  find  how  the  kind  towns  at  last  befriend 

And  the  long  road  leads  to  the  journey's  end. 


72 


XXVII 
Between  your  two  hands  have  I  put  my  faith — 

You  know  not  what  a  precious  thing  you  hold, 

Rarer  than  alabaster  or  fine  gold ; 
A  piece  of  God,  a  loving  thought,  a  wraith 
Elusive  as  the  word  the  sibyl  saith 

When  the  ambiguous  messages  are  told — 

A  single  spirit  unshared,  a  manifold 
Of  them  whose  journey  is  from  birth  to  death. 

Be  careful  of  it,  dear!  If  it  should  slip, 

And  at  your  scornful  feet  should  break  in  two, 

Therein  would  die  more  than  our  fellowship, 
More  than  the  firm  earth  and  ethereal  blue ! — 

It  is  not  I  whose  heart's 'dear  blood  would  drip 
From  the  sad  wound — not  I,  not  I,  but  you. 


73 


XXVIII 

The  town  of  ending  on  the  road  of  years, 
The  little  golden  windows  bright  with  rest 
I  n  restless  night,  the  welcoming  warm  breast 
Where  the  tired  head  may  stoop  itself  with  tears — 
What  are  they  but  a  dream  that  disappears 
When  the  night  draws  its  armies  to  the  west, 
When  the  cold  east  is  tortured  by  the  zest 
Of  dawn's  new  follies  and  returning  fears? 

The  end  of  journeying  there's  none  that  knows: 
The  slow  o'ertake  the  swift,  the  weak  the  strong ; 

Here  the  vague  saint,  there  the  gross  sinner  goes, 
Step  matched  with  step,  song  interlaced  with  song. 

All  we  know  of  the  wind  is  that  it  blows, 
And  of  the  long  road  that  the  road  is  long. 


74 


XXIX 

God  also  is  an  artist  in  his  way, 

Like  these  young  men  of  the  complacent  brush 
He  made  a  canvas  of  the  evening  hush, 

And  smeared  it  with  a  trembling  veil  of  gray ; 

Then  with  the  sunset  fire  made  sudden  play, 
Framing  his  hills  in  that  fantastic  flush, 
And  tore  it  all  and  opened  at  a  rush 

Arches  and  avenues  of  flaming  day. 

The  artist  sees  the  light  behind  the  forms 
(So  the  wise  tell  us),  and,  unknowing,  storms 

God's  secret  mind,  the  meaning  of  God's  plan : 
Maybe  the  Master  'neath  whose  hand  and  eye 
Grew  this  impetuous  pageant  in  the  sky 

Has  read  the  meaning  of  the  mind  of  man. 


75 


XXX 

I  am  frightened,  sweetheart — that's  the  long  and 

short 

Of  the  bad  mind  I  bear :  the  scent  comes  back 
Of  an  unhappy  garden  gone  to  wrack, 

The  flower-beds  trampled  for  an  idiot's  sport, 

A  mass  of  vermin  batt'ning  there,  a  mort 
Of  weeds  a-f ester,  all  the  green  turned  black, 
And  through  the  sodden  glades  of  loss  and  lack 

The  dead  winds  blown  of  hate  and  false  report. 

There  was  a  music  in  the  early  air, 

When  our  young  love  was  virgin  as  we  were, 

Ripe  for  the  rose,  new  to  the  nightingale ; 
But  now  two  ghosts  walk  showing  each  to  each 
The  empty  grace  of  ceremonious  speech, 

And  I  am  frightened,  and  the  air  is  stale. 


XXXI 

This  is  the  law  of  life :  the  same's  the  same 

Only  by  virtue  of  its  changing  shape. 

My  dear,  they  have  derived  you  from  the  ape, 
But,  for  the  difference,  God's  to  praise  or  blame. 
Shall  we  be  sorrowful  and  call  it  shame 

Because,  in  love,  desires  of  love  escape? 

Time  is  a  virgin  born  to  suffer  rape : 
We  tamed  the  wild  heart,  and  the  heart  is  tame. 

But  here's  the  best  of  it — that,  full  of  tears, 
Supine  across  my  arm,  with  lips  athirst 

For  dizzying  draughts  of  passion,  you  can  win 
Back  from  the  long  and  reasonable  years, 

From  faith  and  patience,  the  sharp  joy  that  first 
To  virtue  lent  the  savour  of  a  sin. 


77 


XXXII 

I  have  moods  in  which  I  almost  blame  the  wide 
And  simple  gesture  of  your  liberal  soul, 
Whereby  I  am  enfranchised  of  the  whole 

Of  that  great  kingdom  at  a  single  stride. 

Said  I :  'the  whole'  ? — then  do  no  hills  divide 
Valley  from  valley,  and  no  waters  roll 
Unbridged,  unplumbed? — can  ev'n  your  gift 
control 

The  still  retreating  solace  still  denied  ? 

Why,  to  give  all  is  to  deny  much  more, 

Since  consummation  hungers  for  increase : 
Achievement  is  a  prison,  and  release 
Comes  not  by  op'ning  of  the  dungeon  door : 
There  is  one  life  to  live,  one  world  to  explore, 
And  not  to  ask  for  peace  is  to  have  peace. 


XXXIII 

I  f  you  were  nothing  but  a  sight  to  share, 

A  coloured  grace,  a  bird  of  beauty  preening 
Pale  flames  of  plumage  in  the  overweening 

Light  of  the  insolent  and  crystal  air, 

Still  to  my  thought  you  would  be  more  than  fair — 
But  lo,  compassionate,  out  of  glory  leaning, 
You  have  called  forth  the  music  and  the  meaning 

From  doubt,  retreat,  confusion  and  despair. 

This  is  because  you  love  me — all  this  scope 
Of  happy  courage  and  insurgent  hope, 

This  simple  power  to  understand  and  save, 
This  great  contempt  of  shame,  this  careless  trust 
In  the  divine  occasion  of  our  dust — 

This  is  the  strength  that  love  to  beauty  gave. 


79 


XXXIV 

Your  sleep  is  like  a  child's :  the  thoughts  that  roam, 
Vague  in  the  lucid  and  diurnal  vast, 
Here,  in  the  night,  are  harmonised,  held  fast, 

Like  music  bounded  in  a  temple's  dome. 

Here  is  no  eddy  of  wind  or  flight  of  foam, 
But  such  a  peace  as  shall  absorb  the  past 
When,  with  torn  rigging  and  dejected  mast, 

From  the  last  voyage  the  last  ship  comes  home. 

Some  cry  in  sleep — the  failure  of  success 

Reaches  to  hurt  them  there :  not  so  with  you : 

You  are  so  young  in  sleep,  you  touch  the  close 
That  the  beginning  of  desire  foreknew, 
And  all  the  interim  in  your  loveliness 

Is  quiet,  knowing  what  none  waking  knows. 


80 


XXXV 

Why  is  it  that  the  things  we  hope  and  fear 

Are  merged  in  disappointment,  and  betray? 

That  the  fine  fringes  of  the  hour  decay 
Before  we  grasp  them ;  that  the  shadowed  mere 
Flickers  and  murmurs  and  is  never  clear, 

And  facts  are  always  different  from  our  play  ? 

November  follows  six  months  after  May, 
But  why  is  May  not  May  when  it  is  here? 

Because  the  subtlety  of  things  to  be 
Dies  in  the  pain  of  being;  because  we 

Must  frame  our  visions  for  a  coffin's  length; 
Because  what's  lost  is  lost  for  ill  or  good, 
And  what's  to  gain  is  never  understood, 

And  time  is  strong,  and  only  time  has  strength. 


81 


XXXVI 

My  dim  tumultuous  hell  of  sleep  is  blurred 
With  shapes  fantastic  and  unfortunate 
That  make  the  gestures  and  the  mouths  of  hate : 

An  idiot  gaping  after  a  lost  word ; 

A  green  corpse  from  the  green  earth  disinterred, 
Walking  the  world  with  the  same  arrogant  gait 
As  when,  alive,  it  feigned  to  challenge  fate ; 

And  broods  obscene  of  fish  and  beast  and  bird. 

Yet  here,  ev'n  here,  in  the  grotesque  alcove 
And  secret  chamber  of  the  unplumbed  mind, 
Your  sweetness  penetrates,  and  brings  the  wind 

Of  healing,  and  the  innocent  dews  of  love. 

Wise  as  the  serpent,  simple  as  the  dove, 
To  dove  and  serpent  love  alike  is  kind. 


82 


XXXVII 

Your  beauty  comes  with  banners,  and  the  town 
That  might  resist  you,  armouried  with  time, 
Stoops  to  a  tune,  surrenders  to  a  rhyme, 

Before  your  laugh  puts  all  defences  down : 

Your  eyes  have  tamed  the  spears ;  you  bear  the  crown 
Of  mercy;  pennants  flutter  and  bells  chime 
Delicious  praise  of  you ;  your  glories  climb 

The  pinnacles  that  have  forgot  renown. 

In  perfect  calm,  in  confident  quietude, 

Where  the  only  flags  are  feathery  clouds  of  gold, 
And  the  only  bells  the  sheep-bells  from  the  wold, 
Or  summons  from  the  spire  beyond  the  wood, 
We  two  sit  hand-in-hand,  and  find  it  good 
To  meditate,  to  wonder,  to  withhold. 


XXXVIII 
The  silver  mist  along  the  river  dims 

The  middle  landscape  and  the  distant  hills; 

It  waxes  imperceptibly,  and  fills 
The  evening  with  a  sense  of  dreams  and  whims, 
And  great  Orion  of  the  starry  limbs 

Is  blotted  out,  and  melancholy  kills 

Earth's  wandering  hopes  with  its  insistent  chills, 
And  the  late  birds  forget  their  twilight  hymns. 

The  mist  clings  in  your  eyebrows  and  your  hair — 
The  silver  starry  web,  the  net  of  tears ; 

Your  slim  and  startled  body,  unaware, 

Clings  in  my  arms  for  warmth ;  a  thousand  fears 

Torment  the  cloudy  texture  of  the  air, 

As,  bit  by  bit,  our  known  world  disappears. 


XXXIX 

Now  must  we  gather  up  and  comprehend 
The  volume  of  vicissitude,  and  take 
Account  of  loving,  for  each  other's  sake, 

And  ask  how  love  began  and  how  will  end 

(If  there  be  any  end  of  love,  O  friend 

Of  my  worst  hours  and  best  desires!) — and  stake 
Our  all  upon  the  sweetness  and  the  ache 

Of  what  men's  stories  and  God's  stars  intend. 

You  have  my  all :  you  are  my  all :  you  give, 
Out  of  your  bounty  and  content  of  soul, 

The  only  strength  that  makes  me  fit  to  live — 
Since  earth  of  spirit  takes  such  heavy  toll : 

Yet  I,  the  weak,  the  faint,  the  fugitive, 

Stand  here,  an  equal  part  of  the  great  whole. 


XL 

This  is  my  plea  before  the  accusing  nod 
Of  that  imaginary  judge  whose  frown 
Has  held  the  giant  generations  down 

With  the  pretence  that  judgment  comes  from  God 

This  is  the  wonder  stirring  in  the  clod : 

This  is  the  angel  speaking  through  the  clown : 
This  changes  the  poor  girls  who  walk  the  town 

To  innocent  flowers,  starring  the  April  sod. 

This  is  the  secret,  this  is  the  clear  voice, 
This  is  the  little  soon-forgotten  word 
That  the  pale  prophet  in  the  desert  heard 

When  he  looked  up  and  saw  the  heav'ns  rejoice : 

This  is  the  law  we  know  and  will  not  know : 

Ev'n  this  is  love.,  So  be  it :  it  is  so. 


86 


XLI 

You  told  me  I  had  saved  you  from  the  gloom 
Of  dubious  purpose,  ardour  unfulfilled : 
You  said,  you  would  not  have  the  heart  to  build 

A  house  whereof  I  shared  not  every  room : 

You  said,  without  me  life  would  be  a  doom 

Of  vision  mocked,  truth  pierced,  and  glory  spilled; 
A  ship  that  knew  no  sea ;  a  field  untilled ; 

A  morning  baulked  of  day;  a  trance;  a  tomb. 

You  said,  to  love  me  was  to  yield  my  due ; 

To  serve  was  all  you  could  of  life  require — 
You,  you,  said  this,  the  incomparable  you ! 

The  soul  and  satisfaction  of  desire ! 

Whose  beauty  turns  the  waters  into  fire 
Of  sunlight  and  of  moonlight.  Is  it  true? 


XLII 
I  will  believe  the  thing  that  you  have  said, 

Though  chances  challenge  it  and  doubts  deny, 

And  every  planet  moving  in  the  sky 
Mock  it  with  music ;  though  my  thoughts  be  led 
Back  and  still  back  to  that  unhappy  bed 

Where  my  first  faith  laid  itself  down  to  die; 

Though  I  be  only  such  a  thing  as  I , 
And  all  the  living  laugh,  and  all  the  dead. 

The  ocean  has  its  treasure,  and  the  earth. 

I  grudge  to  none  his  treasure — I  have  mine. 

In  solitude  and  darkness  I  incline 
To  the  last  question  of  the  final  worth : 
But  stronger  than  all  death  of  light  is  birth 

Of  the  one  human  light  that  burns  divine. 


88 


XLIII 

Two  stars  there  are  that  with  an  equal  flame 
Illuminate  the  distant  air,  and  trace 
Indifferent  legends  on  the  heav'nly  face 

Of  evening.  As  the  altering  evenings  came 

To  haunt  and  hurt  my  childhood,  I  would  blame 
The  hours  that  checked  my  stars,  and  mourn  the 

case 
Of  those  strange  wanderers  in  the  vast  of  space 

That  night  by  night  were  different,  and  the  same. 

A  child  no  longer,  I  must  watch  them  still, 
And  still  they  journey  through  the  night :  one 

leads, 
One  follows — symbol  of  a  thousand  creeds, 

Since  both  move  subject  to  an  alien  will ! 

Each  asks  not  each  the  doom  that  both  fulfil  ; 
But  the  star  summons,  and  the  star  succeeds. 


89 


XLIV 

What  have  we  stayed  out  of  the  rushing  course 
Of  days  and  weeks  and  months  and  years,  that 

heap 
Awaking  on  awaking,  sleep  on  sleep, 

And  drown  occasion  as  a  charge  of  horse 

O'erwhelms  an  enemy  of  little  force 

And  leaves  the  dead  behind  it?  Must  we  weep 
Life  drenched  and  dazed  by  that  unpitying  sweep, 

And  nothing  left  of  effort  but  remorse  ? 

To  have  loved,  my  dear,  is  to  have  put  to  pause 
The  violence  of  time — to  have  gathered  up 
Experience  like  water  in  a  cup 

And  held  it  tranquil — to  have  found  the  key 
Of  silence — to  have  mingled  with  the  cause 

That  bids  the  days,  weeks,  months,  and  years 
to  be. 


90 


XLV 

Not  to  be  bounded  ev'n  by  life's  content, 
But  to  get  up  and  go  out — to  track 
The  river  of  adventure  back  and  back 

To  the  dark  heart  of  the  dark  continent : 

Or  to  take  ship,  and  seek  what  the  seas  meant 
By  crying  to  the  land:  'Alack,  alack!' — 
To  tempt  the  last  horizon,  and  to  crack 

Our  final  jest  in  face  of  the  event — 

All  this  were  much :  but  should  we  see  thereby 

Mountains  more  cloudy  with  the  foam  of  streams 
Loosed  from  their  sides,  more  bright  with  snow,  more 

high? 

Should  we  be  wiser  in  the  ocean-themes 
Than  love  can  make  us? — should  we  draw  our 

dreams 
From  deeper  founts  of  life,  before  we  die? 


XLVI 

Perhaps,  perhaps,  since  silence  comes  so  soon, 
And  none  can  tell  what  torment  waits  obscure 
For  when  love  and  delight  become  manure 

I  n  the  small  churchyard  under  the  big  moon, 

We  should  do  better,  while  we  may,  to  tune 
Our  heartstrings  to  the  tragic — to  endure 
The  tortured  soul's  extremes — than  to  be  sure 

Of  the  small  compass  and  the  easy  boon. 

Easy  and  small  ?  O  lamentable  love, 
O  eyes  uncomforted,  untranquil  hands, 

I  s  there  one  grief  we  are  not  native  of  ? — 
One  cruel  hell's  one  corner  that  withstands 

Our  search? — one  page  of  pain  we  have  not  read?- 

Lovers  need  have  no  fear  of  being  dead. 


92 


XLVII 
The  little  things,  the  little  restless  things, 

The  base  and  barren  things,  the  things  that  spite 

The  day,  and  trail  processions  through  the  night 
Of  sad  remembrances  and  questionings; 
The  poverties,  stupidities  and  stings; 

The  silted  misery,  the  hovering  blight ; 

The  things  that  block  the  paths  of  sound  and  sight ; 
The  things  that  snare  our  thought  and  break  its 
wings — 

How  shall  we  bear  these? — we  who  suffer  so 
The  shattering  sacrifice,  the  huge  despair, 
The  terrors  loosed  like  lightnings  on  the  air, 

To  leave  all  nature  blackened  from  that  curse! 
The  big  things  are  the  enemies  we  know, 

The  little  things  the  traitors.  Which  are  worse? 


93 


XLVIII 

I  f  you  had  been  a  woman  when  the  alarms 
Of  childhood  still  were  vagrant  in  my  blood 
And  I  was  driven  by  life's  morning  mood, 
You  would  have  caught  me  up  into  your  arms, 
And  told  me  stories  of  escape  from  harms, 
And  made  me  sure  my  fears  were  understood : 
So,  childlike,  now,  I  draw  my  simple  good 
From  the  mysterious  chamber  of  your  charms. 

But,  dear,  if  you  had  been  the  dreaming  child 
And  I  your  refuge — would  you  have  brought  to  me 
All  childhood's  infinite  infelicity? 

O  not  less  solitary,  not  less  wild, 

Than  when  for  you  harsh  life  began  to  be, 

Here  in  my  arms  with  life  be  reconciled ! 


94 


XLIX 

We  shall  live,  maybe,  till  our  world  turns  gray, 
And  peace  comes  on  us  as  our  powers  grow  less, 
And  scarce  we  shall  distinguish  happiness 

From  the  opprobrious  process  of  decay : 

Yet,  'mid  the  droop  and  pathos  of  that  day, 

'Mid  songs  that  cease  and  wings  that  acquiesce, 
The  fading  skies  shall  one  last  fire  confess, 

And  love  in  a  great  sunset  burn  away. 

Or  else,  perhaps,  because  we  loved  so  well, 
And  found  love  apt  to  life,  the  end  will  prove 

A  consummation  rather  than  a  change ; 
And,  tired  in  the  twilight,  we  shall  spell 
Familiar  meanings  from  the  text  of  love, 
And  only  find  the  words  a  little  strange. 


95 


L 
Give  me  love's  absolution :  all  is  clear 

And  noble,  and  the  peace  long  held  in  trust 
Is  here  enfranchised,  and  the  dark  of  lust 
Breaks  into  beauty,  being  free.  My  dear, 
Whose  lonely  courage  has  affronted  fear, 

I  f  death  should  come  between  us  now,  it  must 
Obey  the  spirit  that  retrieved  our  dust 
To  this  communion.  Love  has  conquered  here. 

What  of  the  road  we  strive  and  famish  o'er  ? 
Lo,  that  old  symbol  of  the  waves  unfree ! — 
The  shore  still  limits  and  defeats  the  sea, 
The  sea  still  breaks  its  heart  upon  the  shore : 
But  love  to  us  has  taught  the  less  and  more, 
And  where  our  journey  was,  our  home  must  be. 


96 


Printed  by  the  Yale  University  Press  at  the 
Earl  Trumbull  Williams  Memorial. 


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